So they say when you get married, you not only marry your chosen person, but you marry the entire family. I found out, years and years ago, then when you divorce your chosen person, the entire family divorces you, whether you want them to or not. It’s a hard fact of divorce, and one that hardly anyone ever talks about.

I met my first husband when I was sixteen years old. He was the first boy to tell me my eyes were beautiful. I’ve always been sensitive about my eyes – I was born with strabismus, a condition where the muscles of the eye don’t work quite right, and as a result, my eyes were crossed. I likely saw double for the first sixteen months of my life, and then between sixteen months of age and fifteen years, I had five eye surgeries. When I was sixteen, the surgeries were behind me, and it was clear my eyes would never be perfectly straight. Throughout my entire time in school, kindergarten through my senior year in college, I endured cruel teasing about my eyes. It caused me to forever cast my gaze down, whether I was sitting at my desk or walking down the hallway. I didn’t even like to look in mirrors.

In the summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school, my family moved, which meant I started at a new school in the fall. I was playing in the band and at the first football game of the season, I was in the stands, waiting for the halftime show. This boy sat next to me and said, “I know you’re new here. You have the most beautiful eyes.”

I married him five years later.

And then divorced him seventeen years after that.

The first Christmas after my divorce, I asked my now ex-husband if I could send Christmas cards to the members of his family, members who I considered my family. He said no, they never wanted to hear from me again.

So I remained silent.

I saw them years later at my oldest son’s wedding. One sister-in-law spoke briefly to me. No one else did.

Then, a couple weeks before Christmas 2020, my daughter told me that my ex-mother-in-law was in the hospital with COVID. And then a couple days later, she died.

I will admit that my first thought was of my ex-husband. Is he okay? Can I help? Eventually, I sent a card. It felt like the only thing I was allowed to do.

But I thought of my mother-in-law. And whenever I think of her, one huge memory always comes through.

When we were first married, I would drive to my in-laws’ house after work to pick up my husband, who carpooled with his father. One day, on the way home, I was following behind a motorcycle. From the side of the road, a small cat came out of the field and began to cross. I watched, horrified, as the motorcyclist veered out of his way to deliberately hit the cat.

I can still remember that little cat, flat out in the middle of the road, his head up, looking after the motorcyclist, as if wondering what happened and why did he do it.

I pulled over and parked, then stood over the cat to make sure no other vehicles hit him further. He was feral and resisted all of my attempts to lift him and move him across the road. Eventually, he stood up on his own and walked wobbling to the other side of the road. I held my hands on either side of him, so he could bump off of me and not fall back down. When we reached the gravel, he stopped, looked up at me with gorgeous green eyes, and then he disappeared into the cornfield.

I was stone-faced when I got back into my car. Frozen. I drove to my in-laws’ house. When I walked in, my mother-in-law looked up at me, did a doubletake, and she said, “What’s wrong, Kathie?”

I was twenty-one years old. I always tried hard not to cry, conditioned as I was after years of teasing and my own study of the floors of my schools. But here, I burst into tears and told the story. Before I was halfway through, my mother-in-law encircled me with her arms and held me so close, rocking me back and forth, and saying, “Oh, how awful. Oh, how awful.” Eventually, she sat me down at the kitchen table, brought me a cup of coffee and a cookie, and she hugged me again.

“Some people are just bad people, Kathie,” she said. “But you’re a good person.”

I’ve never forgotten it. Not seventeen years into the marriage. Not these twenty-three years since.

Because of COVID, my ex-mother-in-law died alone.

There was a memorial service for her, at her church. It was for family only, for the family I used to be a part of. If not for COVID, it would have been a typical funeral, and I would have slipped quietly in at the last minute and sat in the final row, so I could pay my respects and say goodbye. But I couldn’t. This was the COVID era, and I was no longer family.

So I watched it on the video link.

When it was over, I headed out to Starbucks and then I had to go pick up a last-minute gift I’d ordered for my granddaughter. As I drove down the street, I suddenly had to grind to an almost-halt behind a very slow-moving vehicle. Looking ahead, I realized there was more than one vehicle; several moved like snails, and I wondered if there’d been an accident. And then I noticed the telltale flags on the antennas. And the flashing hazard lights.

“No,” I said out loud. “No way.”

The cars turned at an intersection. First, I saw my oldest son’s car, a bright red Kia Soul, and then my younger son’s car, a little white Smartcar. I was at the very end, the final car of my ex-mother-in-law’s funeral procession.

I didn’t turn with them. But I watched the cars go up and over a hill, led by solemn black hearse. Staying just a moment longer at the stop sign, I bowed my head and said out loud, “Goodbye, Mom. Thank you so much.”

And then I drove on.

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